Ukraine army surrounds Donetsk. Will Russia move in?

posted at 10:01 am on August 9, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

With all the focus on ISIS and Hamas, it’s easy to forget that there’s still a war going on in Eastern Ukraine these days. But unlike the other two conflicts, this one may actually be showing some signs of improvement. Ed noted that this move was in the offing earlier this week, and now the AP is reporting today that the Ukrainian military is not only holding their own, but is actually taking back some lost real estate. If these reports are confirmed, they’ve taken control of Krasnyi Luch, located on the road between the two largest Russian separatist strongholds, and now have the city of Donetsk essentially surrounded.

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — A top commander of the pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine said Saturday that Ukrainian forces have seized a key town, leaving the rebel region’s largest city of Donetsk surrounded.

The statement by Igor Girkin, a former Russian special service officer better known by his nom de guerre of Strelkov, appears to be a significant admission by the rebels that Ukrainian forces are gaining the upper hand in the four-month-old fight…

“The Donetsk-Horlivka group of the fighters of Novorossiya is completely surrounded,” he said on a rebel social media page. Novosrossiya, or New Russia, is a term widely used for the rebel region.

In a weird sort of echo of the situation that Israel faces, the media is already highlighting an instance where Ukraine forces hit a hospital in Donetsk instead of the rebel target they were aiming at. But I somehow doubt there will be a lot of international sympathy for the Russians or condemnation of Ukraine’s forces for a few errant shells.

With the attention of the world being increasingly distracted, the question seems to be what, if anything the Russians will do about this. We asked last week about whether or not Putin was getting ready to move in force against Ukraine. This latest report confirms that he still has at least 20,000 troops on the border withing shouting distance of Donetsk, and having the pretense of civilian deaths of Russian speaking citizens might be the excuse he needs.

To the east of Donetsk, Russia has again amassed forces along the border with Ukraine, and the United States and NATO said that if an invasion were launched there under the justification of peacekeeping, it would risk turning an internecine conflict in Ukraine into a new war among nation states in Europe.

Speaking in Kiev on Thursday, NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called on Russia to withdraw its troops from the border and “step back from the brink.”

The cold war is looking pretty hot at this point. Ukraine is doing a lot better than initially expected in terms of beefing up their military, but they are clearly still in no shape for a head on shooting war with the full Russian military. And if Russia actually does move in, will anyone try to kick them out? Doubtful, in my opinion. The only thing that would stop Russia at this point is the fear of getting stuck in another long term battle against the natives, such as the one they lost in Afghanistan.

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Lets see: The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas attacks on Israel, ISIS attacks in Iraq, civil war in Syria and Libya, China claiming other country’s maritime territory in the South China Sea, the Latin American invasion of the US, and Ebola in Western Africa. Did I miss anything?

Lets see: The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas attacks on Israel, ISIS attacks in Iraq, civil war in Syria and Libya, China claiming other country’s maritime territory in the South China Sea, the Latin American invasion of the US, and Ebola in Western Africa. Did I miss anything?

Count to 10 on August 9, 2014 at 10:14 AM

Yes. Russian planes intruding on U.S. airspace a few dozen times without any reaction from Dog Eater.

He is either clearly being fed the wrong intelligence and doesn’t comprehend the true nature of ISIS, or he knows full well and feels it is politically not his problem. Either option is truly depressing.

He is either clearly being fed the wrong intelligence and doesn’t comprehend the true nature of ISIS, or he knows full well and feels it is politically not his problem. Either option is truly depressing.

Yes I am aware of the third option (tin hat on).

can_con on August 9, 2014 at 10:57 AM

can_con:

Hes Out of Touch,…the Devil is running loose, and he could
care less!:)

Looks like the stock investments of Putin and his cronies went way up yesterday when Moscow ended the military maneuvers outside of Ukraine without any further saber rattling. I’m thinking that their personal bottom lines are the only thing keeping them from going in.

He’s just interested in Odessa, where the pipeline head and the gas and oil refineries and storage facilities are located, to the Russian border. You know, all the frontage on the Black Sea, the three major cities of eastern Ukraine where the metallurgical facilities are located, and the more productive half of the Donetz Basin coal mines that aren’t already under Russian territory.

That way he can claim he’s just protecting those ethnic Russian’s interests. The fact that the region was Russian for 239 years or so is in his favor on that score and he’s not a guy to leave any chips on the table.

The world knows that Putin will never be satisfied until he’s retaken the bulk of the map that used to comprise the USSR and re-established Russia as a ‘super power’. He also chafes with many aspects of democracy but seems to have adapted pretty well to most aspects of capitalism. Reclaiming what he thinks belongs to Russia has has been his goal since the fall of the USSR. He thinks that system worked… for him. He also has always seen the fall of the USSR as an opportunity to ‘fix’ what he sees as problems with the old system. He’s much like our progressives in that respect… “never let a crisis go to waste” ( h/t Rahm Emanuel).

Lets see: The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas attacks on Israel, ISIS attacks in Iraq, civil war in Syria and Libya, China claiming other country’s maritime territory in the South China Sea, the Latin American invasion of the US, and Ebola in Western Africa. Did I miss anything?

Unlike Afghanistan, the Sovi…er…Russians consider Ukraine (and eventually Poland, Finland,…) as part of their territory.

Steve Eggleston on August 9, 2014 at 10:31 AM

That and that in Afghanistan, the West was arming the Jihadis–Ukraine not so much as a bullet from the US. We could make Ukraine a lot more difficult to take if we supplied them with something more than MREs. The former Soviet NATO members could give them their inventories of old soviet era weapons and everyone could supply ammunition and air defense while the US gave electronic intel. Sadly, it seems that Ukraine is on its own.